Here was that spot I’d come to that day in the forest it was snowing. I’d been wanting to find this spot but the trails splinter off and I never look at the maps, I just splice the sections together in memory.

As a result, I still get turned around. That day it was snowing I was stoned but it was a turning point in my sobriety. I’d been using weed to kick alcohol but it was just another form of insulation; that day in the snow I realized that.

The contours of a person could change but the underlying material remained the same. No matter how much you reshape a sculpture it still comes from the same block of wood or stone. I was back on that trail and it was summertime and parts of the path looked familiar but it was all different now. The trail could look alien seen from the opposite direction.

Mom said when I was in utero she ate the same thing every day (a hard-boiled egg and toast), and I wondered if that had a trickle-down effect on my need for habits and routine. I felt great but it seemed strange I was getting up so early, coming to the park every day.

That day it was snowing the trees and forest looked spectacular, I’d never seen it with snow, but getting high made me feel bad about myself. Why couldn’t it be good enough sober? It almost felt like the forest was asking me that.

Walking in the dark in the early morning was like writing and thinking combined, using your senses to cut through the murk. At this hour there were only retirees and consultants like me, off work for the summer. And that same Asian woman, the one with the fanny pack in the front always so well mannered.

One of the reasons I like multi-day backpacking trips is you get rewarded for being well organized and methodical. I had to think through everything I’d need and the most economical way to store it.

I was going back out on my own again while Lily was out of town and Dawn and Charlotte, in Germany. But of all the places I could go I kept coming back to the ones I already knew, like the coast or Rainier or the PCT sections I’d already done.

Instead I chose a spot in the North Cascades, not far from the Canadian border, where the landscape gets really dramatic. There was a climber’s camp right at the base of a glacier called Sahale Arm and Brad said he’d stayed there one time and heard it calving. There was only room at the camp for a handful of people but if you got to the ranger station early enough you might get a walk-up permit. And though it was a two-hour drive, I’d be there by 6.

I’d gotten so used to my walking stick I waved it like another appendage, using it to break the webs on the trail, as a back-scratcher, or like a joust. I was talking to myself and doing bicep curls with my stick when I came upon a couple runners and had to look normal.

I threw my stick in the back of the car same as always, released the parking break and bypassed the mandatory safety acknowledgment on the display, spun the car around and screamed.

Categories: Addiction, Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, writing

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, pacific northwest, prose